R A Peters

This book outlines the civil war that the US is in after a president refuses to give up his seat in the White House. As a result, many people are waging war either in favor of keeping the current president in power or overthrowing the government to get him out of office. One side wants the president out of office, and the other wants to keep him in his position. The President will do whatever it takes to stay in office, including killing hundreds of Americans, and those against him will kill hundreds to see that the is taken out of office. There is a lot of bloodshed on both sides of the fight, and I can tell from this book that things are just getting started in this series. I cannot wait to open the next book to see how the war is going to turn out.… (mais)

R. A. Peters’ newest novel is more tightly focused and more overtly science fictional than his Operation Enduring Unity trilogy. In its way, it’s just as topical though.

There are just two viewpoint characters: Peter Dixon, ex-Army medic, Afghan War veteran, and part-time prepper and his wife, Sergeant First Class Danielle Walker, a forward air controller with a Spec-Ops team.

It’s the year “20soon” and the Chinese have landed on the moon.

On a hostage rescue mission in Yemen, Walker’s team loses GPS and radar. Nuclear war? Alien invasion? It’s the start of an odyssey that will have her and her comrades bounce from place to place in the Middle East (Peters throws in a handy map) as they try to figure out what has happened and unify with other American forces.

In Jacksonville Beach, Florida, Dixon dashes from his job as a nurse to pick up his step-daughter Rachel from school. He ignores the power outage at the hospital and the terror alert his co-workers mention, but he can’t ignore the low flying fighter planes nor the submarine launches of ICBMs from nearby US subs.

Peters’ story is tight, plausible in how its scenario proceeds, and full of surprises, so I’ll say no more. The characterization is efficient and plausible and not just in the main characters.

Highly recommended with my one quibble that I don’t buy the basic Warrior Women in direct combat idea however well Walker is characterized. But Peters’ is a veteran of the Iraq War and certainly brings his own informed perspective on the issue.

As any post-apocalypse story with a prepper in it should, we learn some interesting details on how the technological infrastructure of modern life works and how to replace and repair some of it.… (mais)

No plan survives first contact with the enemy.

Our story starts with an assassin taking a shot at a presidential candidate. He misses, the ricochet killing the candidate he does favor. That sets the tone of this book, a story full of accident and misunderstanding and miscalculation.

Sure, the initial set up is improbable, but the consequences after that aren’t. Peters even brings in real military and political precedents from American history.

Sure, there’s satire but not of the arguments that the major political parties make on cable news. It’s a commentary on the bad uses politicians, out of ignorance and ambition and naiveté, put the military to. And normal calculations of cost and benefit go out the window once blood is spilled. There is so little conventional partisan politics that, apart from the brief party identifications of the three presidential candidates, you almost forget who belongs to which party.

What’s mostly here is the thrill, perverse though it may be, of modern, combined arms war waged on American soil by and against Americans. They know each other’s’ tactics, doctrine, and equipment. And, unlike the First American Civil War, the Second doesn’t break nicely on geographic lines. Modern communications means the enemy can be anywhere.

The other big element is that the fortunes of war can change very quickly. Victory, in the propaganda and shooting wars, shifts rapidly here.

Peters also introduces some new weaponry that seems plausible. For all I know, you can already buy some of this stuff.

Peters brings the sort of sardonic, dark humor to his story that combat veterans almost always seem to have to some degree. And he knows how to pace a story. He uses a god’s-eye view that covers the battlefield, economics, politics, and logistics. He even makes his glossary of military terms and weapons amusing.

The characters are serviceable if unexceptionably drawn. They fall in the categories you would expect for this sort of story: soldiers on both sides, a journalist, and politicians. But even the characters who are only around for a chapter to show you the war’s newest horror manage to generate some empathy.

The best drawn is Sophie Kampbell. Radicalized after Federal troops accidentally kill her boyfriend in California, she joins a privately funded militia. We also get the fearsomely deadly Command Sergeant Brown who wrecks a great deal of havoc. He exhibits a fierce devotion to his men’s safety and honor, but he’s also responsible for escalating the war. He seems, along with another character, to be Peters showing that it might not be enough for a professional military man to take legitimate orders and take care of his comrades.

More than one combat veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq (which Peters is) comments on their disgust at being in a civil war complete with civilian insurgents.

This is a satire on American politics gone really bad and, as satires are supposed to do, Peters even offers his political solutions to some of the troubles of American politics.

Very enjoyable and with a surprising amount of realism.… (mais)